Road 7 from Oslo, via Flå, to Bergen

We left Oslo late in the afternoon on the 13th June and picked a random town on the map called Flå which is on Road 7 heading towards Bergen. We purposefully tried to avoid taking main roads wanting to see some of the countryside and also wanting to save a bit of money and camp on uncultivated land (which it appears Norwegian law allows you to do for no cost). After a night near Flå we continued through spectacular countryside and arrived in Bergen around six yesterday evening. The countryside around Flå was wooded and the campsite was nestled in a gently sloping valley along the bottom of which ran a wide but very shallow river. We were already seeing the effects of the fact that it is getting dark later and later as I took the picture above of the boat and the river at nearly eleven at night and the light was still very good.

As we rode to Bergen the road climbed higher and higher into the mountains. Along with the falling temperature the scenery changed from forest to flat moorland and as we reached the highest part of the road (at an altitude of four thousand two hundred feet) patches of snow were increasingly common as were high mountain lakes which were still partially frozen over with thick ice. When we eventually descended from this inhospitable and isolated area we almost immediately noticed an increase in the temperature and even more so a further change in the scenery. The scrubby moorland was replaced again with thick woodland and deep valleys with sheer cliff walls down which we descended on narrow, windy mountain roads. Arriving in Bergen we realised that journeys of any length in Norway take more time than we would have usually expected and we are now intrigued by what lies ahead in the rest of Norway.